As the title says, I'm currently arguing with someone who thinks that every single person who is currently not taking precautions/not masking is an irredeemable piece of shit, and that at best, they deserve no sympathy if they get sick or die, or at worst, they deserve death. And that if they are unwilling to change now, they will never have the capacity to change. And the implication is that trying to convince people or doing any kind of activism isn't all that useful because all these people are immutably selfish and ableist, and the only thing that will get every single one of these people to change their mind is if they get disabled/become directly affected in a bad way. And they keep talking about how the only way things are going to change is if we reach a tipping point with so much death and disability that the ruling class will have no choice but to bring back protections to mitigate/eliminate COVID. Because there won't be enough people to work to keep society functioning basically.
Am I wrong to think that this is very defeatist and frankly grotesque? Because to me, the implication is that they're hoping for the amount of disability and death to become so acute and staggering that the ruling class will have no choice but to intervene I guess? This is without considering the development of next-gen vaccines that can severely reduce or eliminate COVID transmission and/or the development of therapeutics that can prevent long COVID. But if the vaccines failed and the therapeutics got nowhere, who's to say that this so-called tipping point they're waiting for won't take decades? Why would you wait for things to get that awful in lieu of doing COVID activism/organizing in the meantime?
I also really don't think the ruling class is ignorant to the sheer level of death and disability that COVID is going to continue to wreak if left unchecked. There are a myriad of examples of the ruling class still taking precautions for themselves (e.g. everyone has to test still before they can be around Biden), and even some of their authoritative outlets like the WHO have said that 1 in 10 infections results in long COVID and that we can expect hundreds of millions of people to need long-term care in the future, if this current trajectory continues. I understand that COVID is pretty unique for our lifetime, in terms of the massive death and disability it has already brought, and is still dangerous in large part because it is so infectious and there is no long-term lasting immunity. But, post-viral illnesses are not new. Social murder is not new. If we reach this so-called tipping point with so many people dead and disabled that there aren't enough people left to work to keep society functioning, what is stopping the ruling class from getting rid of child labor laws, dipping into labor from abroad, etc. to mitigate this?
On one hand, I get the urge to be misanthropic toward people like that. Everyone who is walking around unmasked in public has the potential to give someone a disabling or deadly case of COVID, including to us. Obviously that's especially bad for anybody who is already medically vulnerable. And for people who are especially vulnerable, I think the vitriol toward people not masking especially makes sense. And I understand that American culture is especially toxic and individualist and bigoted. But like, just because you do activism doesn't mean you have to like these people or be their friends or even treat them with kid gloves, lol (like I know shaming can work for some people and different tactics can work on different people and different contexts).
But like, I completely disagree with the notion that people can't have their minds changed. Like hasn't like literally every single social justice movement for a certain issue with any kind of success started with support from a minority of people, and activism led to a majority of people to eventually adopt that same viewpoint, and eventually that public pressure led to the government being slightly less shitty and alleviating some suffering? For the COVID pandemic, aren't their literally parallels with the AIDS epidemic, as far with it largely being ignored (I know COVID wasn't initially, but it's effectively at that point now), and that things only started changing for the better once groups like ACT UP started getting involved?
And I still think the overwhelming majority of blame has to lie with the ruling class and all the people carrying water for them who have repeatedly bombarded the public with messages expressing COVID is over for the last 2-plus fucking years and that you don't have to worry if you're vaccinated and that bad outcomes only happen to people who are already medically vulnerable. Many people, for example, stopped masking and never looked back once Biden and the CDC said people didn't have to mask any longer if they were vaccinated, way back in 2021. Same shit with mask mandates being lifted, many people stopped masking as a result. Propaganda works and is an insidious beast if used to perpetuate harmful behavior. And I think it would be wrong to to not consider that factor in the choices that people are currently making.
Is ableism an exception to the notion that people are amendable, and they actually cannot change their (ableist) ways?
I don't understand their viewpoint at all, can someone explain? I'm not sure if I'm wrong either because I'm able-bodied and almost certainly still have some ignorance about disability.
Edit: I also think a not-insignificant number of people who are no longer taking precaution in public actually still have a concern about COVID deep down inside, but they are so inundated with being surrounded with other people no longer taking precaution, that they're basically just going along with the crowd and maybe don't want to stick out like a sore thumb or perhaps they are concerned with being harassed by rabid anti-maskers. All of this is to say, I think there is a genuine psychological factor going on in the choice of whether to mask or not, too.
Like you mentioned the propaganda machine made people just deactivate. I still mask up but it’s a pain in the ass, my glasses fog, I’ll sometimes need to put gauze behind my ears because the straps of the mask are rubbing too much. For a lot of people the authoritative voice said they’re cleared paired with just wanting to be done with masking led to the result we’re in.
Not everyone immediately dropped the mask when they dropped mask mandates but as time went on the individual inconveniences applied pressure on people to just accept it, everyone else that’s done it is fine after all. Similar to how Americans have a vested interest in buying into the propaganda against 3rd world nations people had a vested interest in stopping masking because it kinda sucks to do for now into forever.
The way we responded to COVID meant that there was no end date for when it was truly defeated and without robust lockdowns we had no end in sight which means people are looking at the prospect of masking forever, avoiding gatherings, and socially isolating. With no end in sight once again those pressures applied until over time basically everyone had stopped these activities as well.
There was no proper response from the ruling classes, half measures and bad/manipulative communication created an environment where anti masking became political. I would argue though that these are not individual moral failures anymore than how people continue to drive cars and use single use plastics in their daily lives.
At this point individual choices are very toothless in the face of the lack massive societal movement. There are those that are ideologically in favor of these things and will defend them as god given freedoms and I’m not really referring to them.
Society in general doesn’t value disabled people and often ignores their needs. For a lot of people they never even consider that someone might not be able to simply reach an item on a higher shelf because they’re in a wheelchair. It’s the lack of consideration in the slightest that’s upsetting that person. All my explanations touch on a very selfish rationale for peoples actions. Nobody has considered, unless they’re exposed to someone that’s heavily immunocompromised, what havoc it could put into someone’s life. “It’s just the flu” I hear time and time again from coworkers, but we’ve also watched it kill like 10 people on our rehab unit that were in that delicate state to start with.
I see where they’re coming from but I don’t agree with them. Propaganda isn’t a brainwashing tool and requires a receptive populace to start with but in the face of the abject failures of the west’s response and a complete disregard to the third world, is there much we can do at this point other than revolution to change these conditions that make non-masking such a preferable solution to an ongoing pandemic?
Have you tried N95s or KN95s? I find that poor fit masks cause air to blow up at my glasses, which shouldn't be happening. BTW this is also the consensus of r/masks4all is that fogging often but not always means a poor fit, and by God that community tracks their shit.
So I use the 3M Aura and Vflex and neither of them fog up my glasses as the air is spreading out quite evenly around the full surface area of the mask. I'm not sure what your experience is going to be, but it's worth a try.
I suspect that you're not still doing surgical masks, but if you are, please do change as they're not very effective as protecting you, and ya they fog up one's glasses like mad.
I use kn95s and it’s only noticeable when I’m at work, breathing heavily with zero airflow. When out and about or with moving air the issue is mostly ignorable. Only other time is when I’m using a fresh mask for the first 30 minutes until it gets that good seal.
This is just my experience, but I want to say, consider changing your mask and maybe upgrading to N95. The latter are designed to have as little airflow restrictions as possible. But, you know, you know what works best for you.